The Little Show That Could
A couple of years ago, Bryan Fogel and Sam Wolfson were just two of the many struggling actors in Los Angeles. They had studied theater in college--Fogel at University of Colorado and Wolfson at Northwestern University--and were getting by, just barely making rent, for almost six years. The two became friends and eventually wrote and performed a 10-minute comedy skit for a One-Act Play Festival that Fogel was producing. The performance went over so well that Fogel and Wolfson expanded on the piece which has now evolved into Jewtopia. The show just finished a successful 18-month run in Los Angeles at The Coast Playhouse in West Hollywood and is now in New York City at the Westside Theatre, where it will officially open on October 21. Here, the playwrights/performers discuss their little show that could.
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Bryan Fogel: Trying to get a break in show business is like deciding that you want to be an astronaut. Sure, it can happen but it's certainly not the easiest route to take in life. After six years of beating the pavement in Los Angeles after college I wasn't quite sure anymore if I had what it took to make it as an actor. I guess that is really where Jewtopia came from. I had met Sam Wolfson a few years back and both us wanted to have a great agent and manager and dreamed of being paid, working actors. We wrote this 10-minute scene for a one-act festival I was producing and that 10 minutes became the first 10 minutes of Jewtopia. What I'm getting at is that while I had dreamed and prayed that I would have a break in show business, I never imagined that what started as a 10-minute scene would turn into a full-length play and open in New York.
Getting to star in something that you are the creator of is a very surreal experience. I find that on stage my attention is constantly split between being an actor on stage and rewriting and tweaking the material in my head. I'm so compulsive about it that I have my wardrobe person take notes that I give him in between scenes so I can work with Sam after the show to rewrite. While that might sound crazy, I think it's also why the show has been successful. We are never content to stop rewriting and fixing until we think that we have found the perfect line or joke. When we opened the show In Los Angeles it was almost three hours! It is now two hours. I keep thinking that we are done writing and fixing and then everyday I think of another line that could be funnier or a cut that would make the show move faster. Sam is the same way.
We have performed the show over 350 times now. I keep thinking that I will become bored and not want to do it anymore. But that hasn't happened yet. The difference of performing on the stage in Los Angeles and getting to perform in a beautiful theater in New York with almost 300 people is incredible. When the audience starts laughing it all becomes new again. But I guess the most amazing thing about coming to New York is that for so long I have wanted and wanted and for the first time I feel content.
Sam Wolfson: Hey, Broadway.com readers, this is Sam Wolfson, co-creator and co-star of Jewtopia. It's 11:30pm, I just got home from doing two shows and I want to sleep. But I don't see any other time I can write this. Ever since May 8, 2003, my life has turned upside down. My co-writer and co-star, Bryan Fogel and I, racked our credit cards and begged our parents for loans to put up Jewtopia in Los Angeles. It was supposed to run for six weeks and it ran for 16 months becoming L.A.'s second longest-running play ever, right behind The Lion King. They have really cool giraffes and stuff so that's understandable.
We also had an amazing director in L.A., Andy Fickman. None of us had any idea whether LA would respond. It's not exactly a "theater" town, or a "reading" town or an "anything involving any element of substance or genuine human contact" town but, hell, we went for it anyway. We always felt in our guts that we had something special. And that if we built it, they would come.
And man, did they come. From Newport Beach, Seal Beach, Thousand Oaks, Arizona, Vegas, San Diego. We were making our living doing a play! In Los Angeles! We paid our rent. We paid our parents back. We paid the credit cards back. I was actually getting recognized in Whole Foods I can't downplay that; it was freakin' awesome.
Four months go by. Then six. Then eight. Then a year. And that's when New York took notice. Not a day before. Damn, you New Yorkers are such teases--making us wait that long. Suddenly, anybody who's anybody in the New York theater world was coming out to see Jewtopia and wanting to buy it away from us. We decided to partner and co-produce with William Franzblau Say Goodnight Gracie. He hooked us up with three-time Tony nominee John Tillinger let me just take a few of my 400 words to say that John is a genius, he made our show better than we ever thought it would be, and we still don't what he's doing with two schmucks like us. Although, we are fun to hang out with.
And here we are, two weeks into previews, all of which have been sold out. We're sold out through the end of November. So many people said, "Don't go to New York! Go to Florida first! New York will eat you alive!" Well, I'm starting to have another gut feeling. I think we're going to be here for the next 20 years. Which is fine with me. I'm really starting to get into this whole "walk everywhere" thing.
Thanks Broadway.com, it's a thrill to be invited to the party. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take an Ambien and hit the sack.